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Topic: Updating my antennas...sort of (Read 897 times)

2 years ago I moved to a place with 2 acres surrounded by farm fields. The wind has been playing on my inverted vee antennas...especially in winter. The tangling that occurs with the fan dipole style of antenna is disappointing extremely. I have 2 dual band fan dipoles. I need a better solution and I believe I may have found it. I read an article in the ARRL Wire Antenna book that I bought from Amazon last fall. The antenna from the article I read has the radiating elements made from ladder line/window line. I can make a 2-band dipole that will not get tangled because the wires are evenly spaced/separated by the permanent windows. It is still an experiment, of course, but I know they won't get all wrapped around themselves. Here is a picture of how it is made. Maybe someone else here has done this. If so I'd like to know the results. Still too cold here for antenna work but soon.

It should work just fine - 30m and 40m are not harmonically related so interaction will be minimal. I've seen similar designs using coax as the radiators with the center core cut to the lower band and the screen on the higher band.

Thanks Dave. I'm looking forward to fewer tangles. The current antennas are working as well as always (save for 17M) but this should tidy them up as well and reduce the number of stakes in the ground from 4 to 1 where the legs are tied off making grass cutting easier.